Liams



N0 Model.)

A. A188111..` HEMI AND FLAX CLEANER.

Humm: m

Inventor.

Attest: m

-tion of the l UNITED STATES ALBERTANGELL, OF EAST ORANGE PATENT OFFICE.

,NEV JERSEY, ASSIGNOR, BY DIRECT AND MESN E ASSIGNMENTS, TO MARCUS P. TARD LIAMS, OF ORANGE, NEV JERSEY.

AND ISAAC M. XVII.-

HEMP AND FLAx CLEANER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters `:Patent No. 558,921, dated April 28, 1896. Application iiled August l5, 1895; Serial No. 559,349. (No model.)

T0 @ZZ whom t may concern:

Beit known that I, ALBERT ANGELL, a citizen of the United States, residing at East Orange, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Hemp and Flax Cleaners, fully described and represented in the following specification and the accompanyin g drawi1igs,fo11ninga part of the saine.

This invention relates to the production of cleaned hemp or iiax liber for the various purposes to which the same is applicable; and it consists, essentially, in a hemp and flax cleaner provided with a rotary reel and a blower with its nozzle adjacent to and directed along one side of the said reel.

In the annexed drawings, Figure l is an end elevation of the apparatus, showing the principal part of the gearing which connects the operative members. Fig. 2 is an elevasame, viewed from the delivery or front side. Fig. 3 is a plan of the same with a portion of the table broken away, and Fig. 4L is a sectional elevation taken on line sc .fr in Fig. 2.

The machine, as illustrated herein, comprises a supporting-frame A, carrying a driving-shaft S, a pair of plain cylindrical feedrollers a a adjacent thereto, a pair of interlocking blade-rollers Z) b adjacent to the feedrollers, a cylindrical reel a', mounted upon an inclined shaft s beneath and slightly in advance of the blade-rollers, as indicated in Eig. 4, and a fan-blower B, with a nozzle B directed along one side of and parallel with the reel, all of such operative members being connected together to rotate simultaneously, as hereinafter described.

The driving-shaft is provided upon one end with a large spur-gear c, meshing with the lower of two smaller intermeshing gears CZ upon the blade-roller shafts b', such connection adapting them to rotate at a high rate of speed with relation to the driving-shaft, and the latter carries similarly at its opposite end a gear e, meshing with the lower of two intermeshing gears f upon the feed-roll shafts a to rotate the feed-rolls at about the speed of the drivin g-shaft, which latter is provided, in addition to the gears c and e, with a driving-pulley P for receiving the power for actuating the machine.

Upon the lower blade-rollershaft t is ixed also a pulley g, which is connected by two belts 7L and m with the relatively small pulleys e' and/n, respectively, upon the inclined reel-shaft s and the blower-spindle for driving such'members at a still greater velocity than the blade-rollers b.

The interlocking blade-rollers employed in the apparatus are of common form, comprising a pair of parallel cylinders formed each with a series of flat blades projected radially therefrom in intersecting paths, so as to bend the crushed stalks as they are fed between the same by the feed-rollers and scrape the woody matter from the fiber, and the reel r is of ordinary form, being shown in the drawings comprising two circular heads mounted upon a shaft s, inclined downwardly from the end adjacent to the blower with a series of peripheral bars parallel with the shaft for connecting such heads together.

In operation the machine is supplied with successive charges or bundles of hemp or flax stalks, each being first grasped and crushed by the feed-rollers and thence fed slowly forward between the rapidly-rotating bladerollers which operate to scrapethe woody portion previously loosened from the fiber and to propel the latter onward until it falls upon the more rapidly rotating reel.

As the rear ends of the crushed stalks are released by the feed-rollers, any rubbing action upon the forward ends of the iibers which may have previously taken place upon the reel during the retarded forward movement of the stalks ceases, and the bunch of fibers thus freed is then instantly seized by the reel and wound into a coil and then whirled thereon with great rapidity and simultaneously propelled Vby the air-blast from the blower B `to the lower end of the reel, where it is permitted to drop o upon the reel-shaft into a position which is readily accessible for its removal by an attendant. The final whirling of the coil of partially-cleaned fibers by its greater centrifugal action upon such bers as remain weighted with the partially-loosened foreign particles causes such fibers to iiy out- IOO ward to the periphery of the coil, where the impingement thereon of the air-blast, with ihe preferable assistance of the abrasive action of the adjacent sides of the frame or other suitable abutment, operate to brush off such foreign particles, leaving the whole coil entirely free from the woody substance of the stalk which may have adhered through the previous crushing and scraping operations.

While I have illustrated the reel herein as mounted upon an inclined shaft in order to assist the blower in the propulsion of the sucv cessive coils of ber collected thereon to its lower end by gravitation, it is obvious that the force of the blast may be so regulated as to obviate the necessity or desirability of such inclination of the reel, in which case the reel and adjacent nozzle of the blower would be horizontal.

It will also be observed that the precise design of the frame of the machine and the means of driving the operative members illustrated herein are unessential to the present invention, which relates to the combination and arrangement of the operative members of the machine herein shown and described.

Although the reel is shown herein of cylindrical form, it may be found preferable in some instances to make it of conical forni with the peripheral bars converging toward the lower end, in order to increase the freedom of movement of the coils of liber along the reel as they approach the lower end.

Having thus set forth the nature of the invention, what I claim herein, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

l. A hemp and ax clean er provided with a rotary reel and a blower with nozzle adjacent to and directed along one side of the said reel7 as and for the purpose set forth.

2. In a hemp and iiax cleaner, the combination, with a pair of feed-rollers and an adjacent pair of interlocking blade-rollers, of an adjacent rotary reel arranged below the level of the said interlocking blade-rollers, a blower with nozzle adjacent to one end of the said reel and directed along one side of the same, and means for actuating the said members of the machine, as and for the purpose set forth.

3. In a hemp and ilax cleaner, the combination, with a pair of feed-rollers and an adjacent pair of interlocking blade-rollers, of an adjacent rotary reel mounted upon an inclined shaft arranged below the level of the said blade-rollers, a blower adjacent to the upper end of the said reel with its nozzle directed along one side of the same7 and means for actuating the said members of the machine, as and for the purpose set forth.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

ALBERT ANGELL.

Vitnesses:

' M. R. VAR'D,

HENRY I. MILLER. 

